


Identity Crisis

by Lucy



Category: Glee, The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Crossover, M/M, some glee-canon klaine at the start, unrelated to the identity crisis comic run
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-07
Updated: 2014-12-04
Packaged: 2018-02-07 21:57:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1915311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucy/pseuds/Lucy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An old enemy comes to Kurt's aid when he gets into another alleyway fight. Except the man with Sebastian Smythe's face isn't actually Sebastian. The truth about who he is and why he and Sebastian look so much alike is going to change everyone's lives before the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Well. Here this is. 
> 
> It takes place after season four of Glee (keeping in mind that I haven't watched most of season four, so corrections are welcomed) and after the pilot of The Flash. You don't have to have seen the pilot, and I won't be spoiling it beyond general details about Barry's life that were already pretty well told in Arrow. And in years of comics. (Keeping in mind, too, that I am not writing comic Barry Allen, but CW Barry Allen.) 
> 
> Thank.

_Not again_ , he thought when he peered to the right and saw shadows moving violently by a dumpster in the alley he was passing. The sharp rise and fall of swinging arms, the graceless thuds of flesh against flesh, and Kurt knew from moment one just what he was walking past.

 _Not again_ was his first thought before his brain reminded him, loudly, about hospitals and worried dads and the horrible headaches that lasted days after the last time he involved himself in someone else’s fight. He had to be careful, his brain added. He was willful but he wasn't a fighter. The fight was none of his business this time around.

Unfortunately by the time those thoughts registered he was already halfway down the alley. While his brain was shouting for discretion, his mouth was shouting, “Hey! Get off him!”

There were four of them, standing around a single man who was already lying still. It was bad, he realized instantly. Too many of them, all ruthless enough to beat a guy even after he was unconscious.

His feet actually listened to his brain by then, and he skidded to a stop ten feet away from the nearest of the creeps. He even took a step back before he caught himself.

Three of them looked back at him, barely interested. The fourth reared back to deliver a kick to the body on the ground.

Kurt couldn't stop himself. “Just leave him alone, he’s down.” But even as he spoke there was a muffled thump as the kick landed. The body on the ground barely twitched.

One of the other three guys turned towards Kurt. “The fuck business is it of yours? Get out of here unless you want to be next.”

Kurt drew in a breath. He was more hesitant than last time he went charging into a fight, but still not as hesitant as he probably should have been. He moved in, his hands curled into fists at his sides more to give him courage than to try to look intimidating.

“You already won, the guy’s hurt. Just stop before you kill him.”

It was still just the one guy acting like Kurt was worth his concern. He looked him up and down with a smirk. “And just what are you gonna do about it if we don’t stop?”

Kurt swallowed, because he had no answer to that. He wasn't a fighter. “Protest,” he offered weakly, chin in the air. “Vociferously.”

The guy grinned, and for a moment Kurt almost thought he’d done something right. But then the guy’s hand vanished into his jacket. When it came out again there was the surprisingly loud snick of a switchblade opening.

“Vociferous protests are my favorite kind,” the guy answered, and he came striding down the alley towards Kurt. By then his other three pals were paying attention, though none of them moved. They all seemed pretty amused. Which figured.

Kurt’s eyes stayed on the glinting of light off that small blade, and despite his irritatingly insistent will he couldn't help but think it was time to turn and run. Too late, though, the guy picked up speed and charged at him, clearing the last few feet in a flash.

He screwed up his fists and started to raise his arms, and at the same time he said a silent apology to his dad, just in case.

Suddenly something rammed into Kurt from behind. A strange, fast shove; pressure against his arm that knocked him to the side and was gone again in less than an instant. Too fast to be human contact.

He smacked into the brick of the wall hard enough to wrench the shoulder that hit first. Pain flared down his arm and into his chest, but Kurt wheeled around as fast as he could, gripping his shoulder.

Was he shot? Was that what getting shot felt like? A hard shove against the wall, pressure too fast to be the touch of anyone's hand? He gasped for air and looked down at his arm, but there was no blood or torn clothes or anything equally dramatic.

He backed up into the wall, clutching his wrenched shoulder, so no more of them could sneak up on him. He was tensed, ready for...

...for nothing.

The four guys were flat on the ground. The one who’d been charging at Kurt was totally still, his arm flung out and the knife a few inches away on the trash-strewn concrete. The other three had fallen almost in a heap, piled up where they'd stood. Two of them were groaning, moving feebly.

He blinked in shock and edged away from the wall.

The prone body they had been surrounding when Kurt barged in had been moved up to sit against the wall, and there was a guy crouching there beside him. Skinny guy, jeans and a t-shirt and dark hair.

Kurt just stood there for a long moment, rolling his shoulder absently to make sure his arm still worked.

There was one second, maybe two, between his being pushing into that wall and then turning around to see what he was seeing right then. Two seconds and four guys were flat on the ground?

He took a few steps, grimacing at the body of the nearest punk. He caught the knife with the toe of his shoe and kicked it away from the limp hand, just in case the guy was playing dead.

At the sound of the skittering knife the new arrival looked back at Kurt. “Oh, hey, are you okay? Sorry, I didn't mean to push you so hard.”

Kurt’s mouth dropped open.

He hadn't seen Sebastian Smythe in almost two years, but there was no mistaking that face or that voice. His hair was shorter than last time Kurt saw it, and the clothes more casual than anything he’d seen Sebastian in, but everything else was exactly the same.

No, not everything. Sebastian’s expression was new, his eyes wide and his brow furrowed, his mouth creased in something that actually resembled concern. Concern that grew stronger as Kurt gawped at him.

“What...what are _you_ doing here?” Kurt got out after a moment, moving in to make sure his eyes weren't playing tricks.

Sebastian stood up, looking a bit worried. “I saw what was happening, I thought you could use some help.”

“From you?” Kurt scowled. “Wait. No. You. What are you even doing in New York?”

“Um. Well. There’s a conference? On forensic…” Sebastian trailed off, frowning at Kurt. “Sorry, I don’t...do I know you?”

Anger lit up hot in Kurt’s gut. He moved in. “No. You don’t get to do that. Not you of all people.” He stopped suddenly, looking around at the guys on the ground. The guys that no one could have possibly managed to lay flat in the second Kurt’s eyes were turned.

He felt himself going red, and his hands fisted for real. “What is this? Is this some kind of trick? Did you set this up?” He didn't even need an answer, that was the only explanation that made sense. “What, so you could play hero? Are these friends of yours?”

Sebastian stared at him like Kurt was the crazy one. He backed up as Kurt approached. “Look, I was just trying to help. I know New York’s got a rep for being a big bad city, but where I’m from people say thank you for this kind of thing.”

Kurt glowered. “That guy could have cut me! I’m lucky my shoulder isn't dislocated the way you threw me into that wall. What part am I supposed to thank you for?”

Irritation creased Sebastian’s face, making him look a little more familiar than that wide-eyed concern did. “Forget it. Sorry I even got involved, jeez.” He side-stepped the man against the wall and moved around Kurt. “I really didn't mean to hurt you. I hope your friend’s okay,” he added as he reached the opening into the alley.

“He’s your friend, not mine.” Kurt scowled down at the guy against the wall, but the scowl softened after a second.

The guy really did look hurt. And Sebastian really was leaving. No smirk, no insults or come-ons, and those had always been Sebastian’s primary means of communication.

Kurt hesitated, but one of the punks in the pile by the wall started groaning loud enough to make him worry, and he backed out of the alley. Maybe he should call the cops, or…

Or maybe he could catch up to Sebastian and figure out just what the hell actually happened there.

But once he got out of the alley and onto the street, there was no sign of Sebastian. The sidewalks were still crowded, and there were plenty of places for a guy to vanish. But still.

Why would Sebastian go to the trouble of rigging all that just to leave without another word? And why wouldn't he acknowledge Kurt? Surely he hadn't forgotten him in two years’ time.

It had to be a trick of some kind. There was just no way Sebastian had managed to take on four guys and flatten them all without a sound in less than two seconds. The only explanation was that it was some kind of set-up. But for what?

What the hell had just happened?

* * *

By the time he got his laptop open and Skype turned on, he had a better grip on things. Of course it was a trick. It was obviously the first stage of some grand plan, some epic way of screwing with Kurt that he just didn’t understand yet. It had to be, nothing else made any sense. 

Luckily, he already had a date to talk to someone who could shed some light. He was scowling at his screen when the box darkened and Dave Karofsky appeared in a grainy corner.

“Okay,” Kurt said without waiting. “I know you think I’m being unreasonable still resenting that ferret as much as I do, but you could have at least given me a heads-up that he was going to be in New York.”

Dave blinked. “They say hello different in the big city.”

Kurt heaved a sigh. “Hello, David.”

“Hey, Kurt! Great to see you. You’re looking good.” Dave grinned as he went on, making Kurt’s frown deepen. “Okay, okay, now what are you upset about? Last I checked there was only one ferret in our lives, but Sebastian’s not planning any trips to New York.”

Kurt frowned, squinting at the pixelated image. Dave’s laptop was ancient and his webcam was garbage, and these talks were exercises in frustration but Kurt always felt better afterward anyway.

“Well, you’re behind the times. I guess he doesn't tell you as much as you think.”

“Dude. He’s not going anywhere. We've both got finals, we’re lucky if we can make time to shower much less catch a train.”

Kurt considered Dave and Sebastian ending up in the same city to be a cruel injustice. A trick fate was playing on poor David, who already had trouble recognizing Sebastian as the manipulative weasel he was. Making things worse was Sebastian’s insistence on sticking close to Dave, not giving him room to breathe.

Dave called them ‘friends’, and every time he said it Kurt wanted to grab him and shake him and lecture him about learning to value himself.

“When’s the last time you saw him?” he asked those human-shaped pixels, wondering if this was the event that might open Dave’s eyes to that evil rodent's ways. Finally.

“He just left to pick up Thai. It’s been like ten minutes. Stick around, you can talk about his itinerary when he gets back.”

Kurt blinked. He squinted at Dave. “He told you to say that if I asked about him.”

Dave just laughed. “Look. I get that you don’t like him, but when I tell you he’s too big a snob to eat from the Thai place that delivers so instead he’s gonna drive his dad’s Audi halfway across Boston to get the stuff he really wants even though that’s just another hour later we’re gonna have to cram tonight, I actually mean just those things.”

Kurt shook his head. “I just saw him.”

“Who? Sebastian?”

“Yes! Like an hour ago, literally five feet from me. We talked. He’s not in Boston.”

Dave’s image leaned forward, like he was trying to make sense of a Kurt-shaped blob on his own screen. “We’ve been hanging out since we got out of class at like three. I don’t know what you’re on, but…”

Kurt shook his head, but Dave for all his faults was no liar. Even if his perception of Sebastian as a person were incredibly skewed, he normally had no problem bitching about him to Kurt. In fact he seemed to consider it a matter of pride to be as honest and open with Kurt as a person possibly could, which was awkward at times but made this whole conversation an anomaly.

“I don’t…” Kurt sat back, thinking. “That makes no sense. Does he had a brother? Like an actual identical twin brother who has the same prep haircut and everything?”

“Dude, you’ve met him. You think he’s anything but a completely spoiled only child? Besides, the prep-school hair's gone. Stick around until he gets back, you’ll see. He’s doing this weird Euro-trash thing these days, it’s longer and completely douchey. Hey, maybe he’ll listen to your opinion about it, because he sure as shit won’t take style tips from me.”

“Well, no, for all his faults he does have some common sense.” The answer was absent, Kurt’s mind going back to that alley and the fight, and the bewildered way Sebastian had greeted Kurt’s shock.

Kurt trusted his own eyes and his own brain, and he wasn't just imagining it had been Sebastian. It hadn't been that dark, he’d gotten a good look. And Sebastian was fairly distinct, in an angular, attractive-for-a-snake kind of way.

Well. Upon reflection, with that innocent concern on his face he was actually pretty cute.

The thought just made Kurt all the more angry.

“Dude.” Dave shifted, leaning in towards the camera again. “Are you seriously upset? What exactly did this Sebastian shape-shifter do?”

Kurt frowned at the screen. “He...I don’t know.”

“You don’t know.”

“No. I don’t...the whole thing was really odd, actually.” Kurt looked away from the screen, heaving an irritated breath. “Are you sure it wasn't him?”

“An hour ago he was quizzing me on molecular diffusion, so. Pretty sure, yeah.”

Kurt sat back with a frown. “Maybe I hit my head or something.”

“Maybe,” Dave agreed, sounding far too cheerful about it all. “But I’m gonna do you a favor and not mention this conversation to Sebastian when he gets back. Knowing the memory of him is still screwing with you will just make him way too smug to tolerate.”

Kurt couldn't help a small smile. “I'd appreciate that.” A moment later he blinked. “Molecular diffusion? Can you even spell that?”

“Oh, ha ha, there’s the Hummel I know.” Dave rolled his eyes.

Kurt relaxed unconsciously.

They talked.

It was a pretty new thing, still, only a few months since Kurt had seen Dave’s name on Facebook and got in touch with him. Well, more accurately he saw Dave’s name and spent a solid week agonizing about whether or not to get in touch. Whether it was too late, whether Dave hated him for not staying in contact after high school, whether there was still some kind of deluded unrequited love situation between them. Whether they could actually just talk casually without things descending into melodrama. Whether there was anything they could even talk about that wasn't ancient history better forgotten.

Blaine pushed him into sending Dave a message (probably to shut him up about it, but Kurt didn't blame him for that). So he did: a short, embarrassed greeting message that was so awkward it hurt to send it.

Dave answered quickly, cheerfully, and without any hint that things were strange. They were just two old friends from high school, it seemed, and Dave was glad to hear from him.

It was probably not all that accurate. And not all that healthy. They really did owe each other a pretty heavy conversation about the past. But Facebook wasn't the place for that, and once they started having Skype chats that didn't feel right either. Mostly because Dave actually seemed happy, and Kurt didn't want to disturb that even for the length of one talk.

It was avoidance, yeah, but it didn't feel bad. Kurt liked talking to Dave, he liked the idea that they could chat and tease each other and laugh, and hang up afterward feeling better for having done it.

Still, even as they went through their normal pattern of small talk about classes and roommates and part time jobs, Kurt’s mind went back again and again to the alleyway, the Sebastian Smythe look-alike.

If it wasn't Sebastian then it was someone else. If it was someone else then Kurt really had been a little rude, considering that someone else had likely just saved him some pain.

But then that just didn't follow. Whether it was Sebastian Smythe or Spiderman, nobody beat four guys in a fight in a split second, without a single sound. It just didn't happen. Even a taser took a few seconds to be effective and made some noise as it did. But those guys had been flat on the ground in a blink, like they’d simply agreed to fall at once.

Which made no damned sense. If the guy had set the whole thing up to play hero surely he would have faked a little bit of actual fighting. And if he hadn't set the whole thing up then why would they have taken dives? Sebastian, or his look-alike, wasn't exactly imposing physically.

Maybe Kurt’s mind had been playing tricks. Tricks of timing, if nothing else. Maybe he smacked his head on the wall when he was pushed to the side, and lost a few seconds he didn't realize.

That didn't feel right to him, though. Nothing about it made sense.

“Seriously. If you want to take off just say so, you’re freaking me out just staring like that.”

Kurt blinked at the screen and couldn't help a chuckle at the way Dave was looming in close to his camera, nothing but a shadowed blur as he peered at Kurt.

He waved a hand, but nodded. “Yeah, maybe I should go. I’m a little thrown off by earlier.”

Dave sat back a reasonable distance. “Whatever. I still think you should stick around for Sebastian’s douche-hair.”

“Next time. Oh, or snap a picture and send it to me. I’ll humiliate him on Facebook, as god intended.”

Dave laughed. “You got it.”

Kurt did feel better, in a way, as he shut the program on his screen and set the laptop aside. It was good to see Dave smiling and make him laugh, even if it didn't ease any of his confusion about what he’d just gone through. What he had with Dave was something he never thought he could have with the guy - something he didn't have with anyone else, either: a pleasant, uncomplicated friendship.

Still, there were some people in his past that he was more than happy to leave there, and Sebastian was one of them. Despite Dave’s insistence that he was an actual feeling person, Kurt would have been happy never seeing that face again.

And now he had seen it, in some form or another, some impossible way he was no closer to understanding.

* * *

An hour later, while Kurt was cooking dinner and trying to figure out what to tell Blaine about what had happened, if anything, he got a text from Dave. There was a picture attached.

_He only let me take this when I told him who I was sending it to. You guys have the most complicated relationship for people who have barely ever spoken._

The picture was absurd enough to make Kurt laugh in the silence of his kitchen. Sebastian was posed like some movie poster exploiting a female lead: his skinny ass was facing the camera and he was half-turned at the waist to look back, his lips pursed, hands up at his chest like he was holding an invisible gun. Charlie’s Angels gone horribly wrong, but Kurt laughed. And not particularly unkindly. At least there was a sense of humor in the pose.

Dave was right, his hair had grown out a good four inches, and he wore it in this weird half-slicked style like something from an 80s Merchant Ivory film. Kurt could see what he was going for, but it was not working.

More importantly, it was nothing like the guy he’d met in the alleyway earlier.

He texted back ( _Tell him A Flock of Seagulls called, they think his hair is stupid too._ ) and thought everything through once more time as he finished whipping up a spontaneous batch of brownies. Blaine would know something had happened, but. Brownies. Chocolate helped him think.

Not Sebastian, which meant random stranger. Which meant either a random stranger had helped save Kurt and some other random stranger, or that a random stranger was setting up elaborate and dangerous hero scenarios in the middle of the City in some attempt to...to what?

It still made no sense.

He ran through his brief interaction with the guy in his head a few times, before he remembered a new detail. He'd asked what ‘Sebastian’ was even doing in New York, and the guy started to answer. He said….something.

Damn it.

Some kind of conference? About something. Yes.

It was a start, and Kurt left his brownies in the oven as he consulted the all-knowing Google. How many conferences could there possibly be in New York City in the middle of May?

All of them, it turned out. Every conference in the history of the world was actually being held in New York City during that specific May. You’d think the traffic would be worse.

He found an events site that had a long listing of individual events, and he hunched over and started scanning.

Ten minutes later Blaine breezed in and through the kitchen, expressing mild concern about the smell of baked goods coming from the oven. He breezed out again with some parting message about rehearsals that Kurt only half heard. He was used to Blaine being busy, it wasn't all that surprising.

Right when Kurt was about to give up and try to think of something else, a word caught his eye. International Conference on Digital Forensics and Cyber Crime. Forensic. That rang a bell.

And it was going on that weekend, at a midtown hotel less than two blocks from the alley.

Kurt sat back, inordinately pleased at having figured out that much from his spotty memory.

He had a lot of questions and some idea where to go to find answers. He had the schedule to a conference his mystery rescuer was going to be at. He had a tray full of fresh-baked brownies.

All he had to figure out was what to do with all of it.

 


	2. Chapter 2

For a few moments after he spotted the guy, Kurt wasn't sure how he ever could have mistaken him for Sebastian Smythe.

The guy, whoever he was, was standing in a milling crowd in the narrow, carpeted corridor as some lecture or whatever was letting out behind them. Kurt had no idea what cyber forensic conferences consisted of. If not for a few random episodes of Law and Order he'd barely know what _forensics_ consisted of. From what he could tell it involved a lot of serious-faced men in Sears-quality suits standing around talking in low voices. Older men, mostly, which made the Sebastian doppelganger easier to spot.

He was standing with a group of three other men, all of them listening raptly to some silver-haired guy talking. Sebastian-clone was more rapt than anyone, which was one reason Kurt had no trouble believing this was not Sebastian. His expression was completely open and unguarded, his eyes wide in admiration, his mouth twitching like he had to hold back a huge smile. And yeah, Sebastian's features, Sebastian's hair, Sebastian's height and build and everything else, but Kurt doubted Sebastian had ever had that human an expression on his face.

Kurt stood back, glancing around enough to ensure that no one was paying him any attention. He didn't exactly fit in with the crowd, though luckily he had dressed down for the occasion and wasn't quite as flamboyant as usual.

He leaned back against the awful beige wall behind him and watched the mystery man.

Whoever it was talking, he seemed to inspire a lot of respect. Aside from his three doting listeners a half dozen other people passing him by stopped to shake his hand before they went. Sebastian-guy didn't take his eyes off the guy, at least not long enough to notice Kurt watching him.

When the older man was done holding court the men around him all said their goodbyes and headed off to wherever their cyber forensic adventures were taking them next. Kurt's target lingered back, shaking the man's hand with enthusiasm and chattering at him excitedly. Kurt could hear the animated up and down swoop of his voice - Sebastian's voice – and he couldn't help a faint smile. Another difference.

Finally they wrapped up whatever the hell the guy was so excited about, and one exuberant handshake later Sebastian-man was turning to head off. And finally, as he turned, his gaze landed on Kurt.

Kurt straightened, sucking in a breath and letting it out before he pushed away from the wall and approached.

His target's grin faded, and his eyes went wary with recognition. But he met Kurt halfway, in the middle of the rapidly emptying hallway.

“Um. Look, if you're gonna threaten a lawsuit or something you should know I'm just a tech with the police. So you won't get much more than a pretty big collection of hoodies.”

Kurt found it easy to smile at that. “I wanted to show you something.” He pulled his phone from his pocket.

The guy blinked, but waited without comment.

The Youtube video was one of the Warblers' performances from sectionals. Sebastian was front and center, and whoever filmed the song had obviously been enamored by him enough to stick pretty close to him as he filmed. Which, okay, was a little understandable. Cameras seemed to love Sebastian, and he did have a certain charm when he was performing. Fake, obviously, but there.

When the song was going he held the phone out to the stranger.

He took it without hesitating, patient with the oddity of the situation. He peered at the video, and Kurt watched after a second as his eyes went round with surprise and his mouth dropped open. “What the...”

“I thought you were him. I know him, from back home. And we don't particularly like each other.”

Strangely, the surprise on the guy's face turned quickly into something deeper, the color draining from his face and alarm darkening his eyes. “Who is this?”

“His name's Sebastian. Right now he's a stud--”

“When was this video shot?” The guy's eyes, Sebastian-green, left the phone and stared hard at Kurt.

Kurt hesitated, but shrugged. “Probably three or four years ago now.”

“Years. You're sure?” Those worried eyes went back to the phone. “You knew him before last year?”

“Trust me, I never forget an enemy.” Kurt spoke lightly, though something about the guy's fear was making his stomach twist unpleasantly.

Some of the worry seemed to leave the guy's expression, but his brow stayed furrowed as he held the phone back out.

Kurt took it, shutting off the video. “I just wanted you to know why I was a little on the psycho side last night. And I wanted to apologize for said psychosis.”

For a moment the guy seemed too distracted to listen, but he blinked and met Kurt's eyes and smiled, sudden and bright. It didn't wipe the apprehension from his eyes, but it was still nice to see. “You must really hate the guy. I thought you were gonna hit me.”

“I don't _hate_ him. But I'm forced to endure his existence because other people don't hate him even more than I do. Which is annoying.” Kurt returned the smile. “Anyway, I'm still a little confused about everything that happened yesterday.”

The guy flushed pink, another new surprise on that familiar face. “I can understand that. How's your arm? I really am sorry about that part.”

“Sore, but I'll live.” Kurt studied him, and heard himself speak before he could consider the words. “A cup of coffee would make proper amends, I think.”

“Coffee?” The guy blinked, but smiled again after a moment. “Oh. Sure, okay. I want to hear more about my evil twin, anyway.”

Kurt made a face. “He's a douchebag, excuse the crudeness. End of story.”

His smile faded. “It might be important. Really important.”

Something in that grey-eyed gaze made Kurt frown. There was something there, something that had been in his fear a minute ago, that seemed bigger than Kurt was ready to handle.

He cleared his throat and sighed. “I can think of a million more pleasant topics, but. Deal.” Kurt stretched out a hand. “Kurt Hummel.”

The guy returned the handshake easily enough. “Barry Allen.”

* * *

 

Barry Allen was a police tech from Central City, Missouri, with a sweet smile and genuine interest in his fellow human beings. So after an hour sharing a table with him over coffee Kurt was able to put Sebastian Smythe entirely out of his mind. They couldn't have been more different, really.

“\--so the review of the character strings inside the executable is really an incredibly simple binary analysis technique. I mean there's no reverse engineering required, it's basically just like searching through a text file. It's seriously amazing how simple it is, considering how much time and energy usually goes into researching the origins of these codes.”

Barry Allen also talked. A lot.

Kurt tried his best to keep up, but it wasn't hard to see that Barry was smart. Seriously, genius-level smart. “So the guy you were talking to at the conference is like an expert at this stuff?”

“He's a legend,” Barry answered enthusiastically, draining the last of his coffee and thunking the mug on the table in order to gesture as he went on. “He was with DARPA for like twenty years, one of those if-I-tell-you-more-I'd-have-to-kill-you kind of jobs, but he came out of it with these _awesome_ advances in every kind of digital footprint analysis you could think of. Mind-blowing stuff, and it's not even half of what he knows. It's just the half he can tell people about.”

Kurt laughed. “I take it you're excited by that James Bond kind of stuff. Or is it more George Orwell?”

Barry shrugged. “I guess there's a certain Big Brotherness about it all, but I mean if you've ever used Google for email then you already know there are programs with algorithms scanning your messages and sending you ads based on content. The government's no more intrusive than that, really. Though my friend Cisco likes to say that he'd never say anything in an email that he wouldn't read out loud in court. With his mother listening.”

Kurt shook his head, sipping at the lukewarm foam at the bottom of his cup. “Good thing I don't have any secrets, then. So this is your job? Secret spy stuff like this?”

“Me? Oh, man, I wish. Most of what I do is like fingerprint analysis and DNA samples and that kind of thing. Cop work. I mean I love it, don't get me wrong.”

Kurt could tell he did love it. There didn't seem to be much covert about Barry Allen. Everything was right there on his sleeve for everyone to see. It was...interesting. Unusual. Kurt himself had a history of swallowing down his enthusiasm. Maybe it came from growing up in a closet, or from being handed so many disappointments. The only thing worse than not getting something he wanted badly, Kurt found, was when everyone around him knew how badly he wanted it and how much the loss hurt him. Or, worst of all, when his friends knew how much he wanted something but chose to take it from him.

It was better to play it cool, in Kurt's experience. Barry must not have been taught that lesson. If he was lucky he never would be.

Barry cleared his throat suddenly. “I've been told that I talk too much about stuff no one but me really cares about. Sorry for that. Usually people's eyes glaze over and that gets me to stop, but you've been surprisingly patient.”

Kurt watched a touch of pink tracking down Barry's cheeks in fascination. “I'm enjoying it, actually. It feels like a whole different world than the one I live in, it's interesting. Just don't blame me if I don't understand half of it.”

Barry grinned. “Still. It's your turn. I don't know anything about you, except you get into fights in alleys and don't respond to being rescued very well.”

It was Kurt's turn to flush. “I said I was sorry about that. But I guess I don't. I'm not used to being rescued.”

“You fight your own battles, huh?”

“Always have.” Kurt felt his shoulders go back a bit as he spoke. It was true, after all. And it was something he was proud of. There were a lot of times he'd had to stand up for himself. Sometimes he had support, sometimes not, but he always stood.

Barry studied him for a moment, then smiled faintly. “I was never much of a fighter. Not until recently. Didn't stop me from trying, but I was never all that good at it. I'm still not."

“I read a little article in a news blog this morning about four guys getting arrested in an alley. Those guys might argue with you.” Kurt set his cup down, studying Barry right back with sudden sharpness. He'd been so distracted by Barry wearing Sebastian's face that he'd forgotten about the other, equally bizarre aspects of what had happened the day before.

That little article he'd found was just a vague paragraph but had just enough detail to satisfy Kurt that it was about what had happened to him, and that whatever had happened it hadn't been a set-up of any kind. Those creeps were all in police custody, even their victim. Gang violence, the article suggested. Nothing more than that.

So it was real enough. But nothing in that article had begun to address exactly how Barry had done what he did.

Barry's eyes shifted down to the table as Kurt peered at him. He reached for his empty cup, shifting it between his hands awkwardly. “Would you be willing to believe that you hit your head and the whole thing actually took like ten minutes?”

Kurt's eyebrows lifted. “No.”

“Yeah, no.” Barry sighed. “It's...difficult. To explain.”

“That I believe.”

“It's also dangerous.”

Kurt frowned. “To who?”

“Me. Maybe you. Maybe nobody.” Barry frowned at his hands. “I mean, don't take this the wrong way, but I don't really know you.”

Which was fair enough, but Kurt couldn't help pushing. He wanted to know, and he wanted to know more now that it seemed the answer was some kind of dangerous mystery. “Funny, I was just thinking that you were probably horrible at keeping secrets. You seem too honest.”

Barry grimaced. “I'm lousy at it. And that's kinda come back to bite me a few times now.”

“Well. As much as I might _intensely_ dislike a certain someone who looks exactly like you, maybe I shouldn't answer any questions about Sebastian either. I mean if there's so much danger around you.” Kurt looked across at Barry innocently.

There was a moment's pause, but Barry slumped and actually seemed a little relieved. Definitely not a guy comfortable with secrets. “Information exchange? Seems fair. Just...I don't know if you take promises seriously, but...would you...”

“I promise,” Kurt said seriously, leaning in and meeting Barry's eyes. “I won't breathe a word to anyone, no matter what you tell me. Me, I'm an old hand at keeping secrets.”

Barry held his breath, gaze locking on Kurt's. There was a pause, intent and solemn, before he sat back and let out a sigh. “I can move really fast.”

Kurt blinked.

Barry's teeth dug into his lip, nervous and waiting.

“Right. Just as well I promised to keep that a secret. Who would ever believe me?”

Barry's mouth twitched in the slightest smile. He started to lean forward, and then...

If Kurt had a genius brain and spoke a thousand languages he probably still wouldn't have had the words to describe exactly what happened. It was like when he woke after too little sleep and his vision was still blurry and smeared from exhaustion. Except he was wide awake, not even a blink to explain what his eyes saw. Still, Barry seemed to blur as he sat there, his entire form going unfocused for a split second. And when the blur sharpened, Barry's hand was suddenly outstretched between them. In his hand, instantly right there at Kurt's eye-level, was one of those awful six-inch tourist models of the Statue of Liberty.

Like a magic trick, like sleight of hand making a card turn into a bouquet of flowers or something. A moment's unclear vision and then a cheap plastic statue twelve inches from his face.

Kurt's mouth opened, then shut. He cocked his head, staring at the statue and then behind it at Barry's face. “What is that?”

“There's a shop halfway down the block selling these. We walked past it, remember?”

Kurt shrugged. “I've lived here long enough that I stop noticing those little tourist traps.”

Barry smiled. “Well, I'm no thief. I'm going to take this back. Meet me there in a minute.”

And then he was gone. Not instantly, but quick enough that there was no more than another moment's blurred vision, and then the seat was empty. There was an annoyed cry from the door to the coffee shop, where someone trying to leave suddenly stumbled backward as if pushed. But Barry was gone.

Kurt blinked hard, not trusting his eyes. He pushed his chair back and stood up. His first few steps were a stumble.

Barry sat cross-legged on the sidewalk in front of the shop when Kurt approached. He was calm, settled, looking like he'd been there a while. He smiled when he saw Kurt coming, but there was something apprehensive about it. Vulnerable.

Kurt stopped a couple of feet away, staring down at him. Sebastian Smythe's face, a stranger's unsure smile, and Kurt would have assumed he was being pranked by one of those obnoxious hidden-camera shows if not for the fear in Barry's eyes.

He held out a hand. “Take my advice: get up fast. The most dangerous thing you've done today is touching any part of your body to any part of this disgusting sidewalk.”

Barry's smile stretched wider in relief. He reached out and let Kurt help tug him to his feet.

For a moment they stood there, regarding each other, and Kurt had the sudden thought that if Dave Karofsky ever saw a smile like this on Sebastian's face, it was no wonder he resisted all Kurt's efforts to separate them.

Kurt had no idea what it was that Barry could do, or how, or what it meant. He had no idea why Sebastian had his face, or what that might mean. What he did know was that when Barry looked at him with that smile, sweet and shy and unsure, Kurt all but breathed it in. He felt instantly like the most important thing that he could possibly do is make sure nothing he ever did made Barry lose that smile.

That feeling, the intensity and suddenness of it, was equally as startling as watching Barry all but vanish in the blink of an eye.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

The walls were puce. Actual, French-derived, flea-colored _puce_. So there was maybe an advantage in the surface area of the room being so small. Kurt didn't like to judge – yes, he did, it was his favorite – but there was no greater hell than the interior design scheme of cheap hotel rooms.

“The police don't give you a very big budget for these conference things, do they?”

Barry followed Kurt's gaze around the dingy closet of a room. He flushed, but shrugged. “Actually, the police didn't send me. The conference is sort of a vacation, so the crappy hotel's my own fault.”

Kurt looked back at him, eyebrows raising.

Barry met his eyes for a moment, nodding solemnly. “I'm a nerd.”

The earnest look in his eyes made Kurt laugh, the side of Kurt that couldn't stop thinking of him as Sebastian. During the walk to the hotel Kurt had learned that Barry was entirely left-brained, with no interest or talents in music or sports. And he blushed way too much to be promiscuous in any way. If he was straight it would make him and Sebastian about as opposite as two people could get and still have the exact same appearance.

Of course if Barry was straight then Kurt's amusement would be overshadowed by some small sense of disappointment, but that was Kurt's cross to bear.

He moved around the tiny table where Barry was set up and sat gingerly on the narrow bed, concentrating so that he could jump up again the moment he felt anything that might have been a bedbug.

Barry turned back to his laptop, typing about a thousand words a minute to whoever it was he'd been texting back and forth with as they made the walk to the hotel.

“They should be in the lab in just a couple of minutes,” he'd said down on the street after a few quick texts. “They want to talk to you, if you don't mind coming up for a minute.”

Kurt of course had no intention of walking away. He wouldn't have even when this was just Sebastian's sweet-natured doppelganger, much less now that he was some kind of wizard with superhuman speed.

Soon enough Barry sat back, turning the volume up on the laptop and gesturing Kurt over. “Okay, we're all set.”

It seemed even police tech computer nerds still used Skype. Kurt grinned at the familiar grainy screen, and the two young faces that peered out at him through it. Barry's computer and this mystery lab's webcams were at least better quality than the ones Kurt and Dave usually communicated through.

“Wait, no evil twin?”

“Sorry, he's not here,” Barry answered the long-haired guy on the screen. “But check your email and follow that YouTube link.”

“Sweet.” The guy's face vanished, leaving just a frowning female behind, eyeing Barry and Kurt suspiciously.

Barry seemed to squirm the longer she peered at him. “I didn't do anything this time.”

“Really?”

“Really! Check the papers, there hasn't been a single Streak or Blur or Flash in New York City the whole time I've been here.”

The girl nodded over at Kurt. “You might want to watch your words.”

Barry ducked his head.

She pointed at the camera instantly. “I knew it! He knows! You know, don't you?”Those probing eyes moved to Kurt and stayed there.

Kurt shrugged innocently, feeling strangely protective of Barry in the face of her disapproval. “Know what?”

She scowled. _“_ Don't try that with me, even if you are a better liar than Barry.”

Barry shot Kurt a weak smile. “She's right, it's fine. Yeah, he knows. But I _had_ to help him, he was taking on these four guys all by himself. And nobody saw me. Nobody but Kurt, anyway.”

She sighed, her sternness fading back after a moment. “If you get into trouble he's never going to let you leave Central City again. You realize that, right?”

Barry made a face. “You mean Joe, or Doctor Wells?”

“Exactly.” But she was distracted suddenly by a crowing voice behind her, and her face vanished from the screen. In the background Kurt could hear the familiar sounds of Warblers harmonizing on video.

Barry looked over, pink-cheeked. “So. That's them. Cisco and Caitlin.”

“They seem...” Kurt hesitated.

Barry grinned. “They are. But they're great. They've saved my life a few times since all of this started. I'd have gone nuts without them.”

Kurt turned to him then, wondering. “How did all of this start?”

“It's a really, really long story.” Barry glanced at the screen, but his two friends were still off somewhere absorbed in Warblering. He turned back to Kurt. “But it's a pretty great story.”

Kurt returned his shy smile. “I've got no plans tonight.”

“Cool.”

“This is you!”

They both turned back to the screen, to Caitlin’s wide eyes staring out at Barry in shock.

Barry shook his head. “I know you've never actually seen me attempt to dance, but I promise that is absolutely not me.”

“No, listen.” She half twisted away, working on some other computer screen. “We're mapping it. Cisco can pull some rough calculations from that video, but we've already got every stat on you that's potentially measurable and I'm telling you...”

Cisco came and joined her suddenly, reaching over her shoulder to type at her keyboard. _“_ It's close. It's weirdly, suspiciously close.”

Barry frowned, leaning in to his laptop. “What do you mean?”

“I mean...” Caitlin frowned over her shoulder at something suddenly.

“She means.” A man came into sight. Rolled into sight, Kurt realized a moment later. Older than the other two, but still only in his forties, maybe, and sharp-eyed behind thick glasses. _“_ That we are going to need a lot more information about this mystery lookalike.” The man looked at Barry, then past him at Kurt. “You know this person?”

Barry sat back and gestured Kurt in closer. “Sorry, um. Doctor Wells, this is Kurt. Kurt...Harrison Wells.” He breathed out the name with a note in his voice, the same one he had when enthusing about the old guy from the forensics conference earlier. Hero worship, maybe, to some degree.

Kurt had the feeling that he should have recognized the name. As it was he just waved awkwardly. “Hi. And yeah, I know him. Knew him, anyway.”

“You knew him before last year?”

Kurt blinked, both at the intensity of the question and the fact that Barry had asked the same weirdly specific thing earlier. “We went to high school in the same city in Ohio.”

Cisco's face pushed into camera-sight then. “Do you know him well enough to get a DNA sample?”

“I'd have to be drunk first. He's not really my type.”

Cisco stared at him, then cackled. _“_ Awesome. Not what I meant, but awesome.”

Barry leaned in next to Kurt, looking at the laptop screen with a furrowed brow. “Wait a minute, guys. Is this something we're actually worried about?”

Doctor Wells answered, looking from them to the monitor Caitlin sat at and back again. _“_ I don't believe in coincidences, Barry. Not where you're concerned.”

“But we already know the particle accelerator explosion couldn't have had anything to do with this. Not if Kurt knew him before the accident.”

Wells stared at Kurt for a moment, as if doubting his story. _“_ You need to get back here,” he answered, eyes going back to Barry. _“_ Particle accelerator or not, if this is anything more than a complete fluke then it's got some alarming possible ramifications, and we need to find out fast what those might be and deal with them.” He looked over his glasses at Kurt. _“_ You know where to find this person?”

“Sebastian?” Kurt hesitated. “Maybe.”

“Good. Bring him with you when you come.”

“When I come? Wait a second here.”

“As soon as possible, Barry.” Wells looked out at them both. _“_ You know the kind of stakes we usually deal with. Make sure they know them, too.”

Wells reached out, and suddenly the connection was cut off, the Skype box going back to default as the call hung up.

Kurt stepped back as Barry turned in his tiny hotel desk chair. “Well.”

“He...can be pretty abrupt,” Barry said weakly after a moment. “But he's also right most of the time.”

Kurt was no super genius with a lab, but he wasn't an idiot. From everything he'd heard he had put together that a year ago something happened, some particle explosion accident, and he figured it must have been that that made Barry so fast. It must have also caused a bunch of other weirdness, because the idea that Barry might have some kind of twin or clone or double as a result of the explosion had been considered plausible by at least Barry himself and Doctor Wells.

And whatever happened, whatever it caused to happen afterward, it had the whole group of them pretty paranoid.

“What did he mean at the end?” Kurt studied Barry, the anxious green of his eyes and the way his teeth dug into his lip as he studied Kurt right back. “What kind of stakes do you usually deal with?”

Barry sighed. “Usually? Pretty much life or death.”

“ _Your_ life or death?”

Barry's shrug was answer enough. He seemed pretty sheepish about the whole idea. “But look. I'm used to how weird things are around me lately, but I do have vague memories of normal life. I understand if you don't want to get involved. Nobody's gonna drag you to Central--”

Kurt held up a hand.

He had no urge to go off to some city in Missouri he'd barely ever heard of. But when Kurt spared a moment to actually think about it, he had to admit that following this thing through was bound to be more interesting than anything that would happen if he turned his back and stayed home. And really, the travel part of it was the only aspect he wasn't interested in.

Barry was a really nice guy, with a bizarrely familiar face. What he could do was amazing, and whatever story was behind it had to be pretty fascinating. And really, what would Kurt miss if he took a few days and had himself a little adventure? A couple of shifts at the diner, some schoolwork, nights at home watching Blaine come and go?

That was the normal life Barry was inviting him to stay stuck inside. But normality had never much interested Kurt Hummel. Not when there were more interesting alternatives.

So he smiled, decision made and without any second thoughts. “I'm willing to step away from normal life for a little while, for a good cause.”

Barry blinked in surprise, but grinned a moment later. His shoulders seemed to slump with relief. "Oh. Okay. Good." 

“Besides.” Kurt returned the grin, feeling amused by the entire thing. “Showing up in Boston to tell Sebastian Smythe that he has to go to Missouri to get calculated on by doctors because he might be someone's evil twin or something...that is something I absolutely refuse to miss out on.”

 

* * *

 

 

It was almost four hours by train from New York to Boston. Just enough time for Barry to tell his enthusiastic audience of one a really long, really good story.

It was like something out of a movie: Barry's mother being murdered by some mysterious force when he was a kid, his innocent dad going to prison for it. Barry's obsessive interest in everything unexplainable as some way of coping with the tragedy. And then the particle accelerator explosion that turned Barry himself, along with apparently a whole crowd of psychopaths, into something just as unexplainable as the thing he'd been looking for his whole life.

Kurt had counted half a dozen spots in the story where he should have just laughed and written Barry off as completely nuts. But Kurt had seen what Barry could do with his own eyes. Or...not seen it. Kind of seen it, whatever. And Kurt didn't laugh.

Kurt, by the time the train was pulling in to South Station in Boston, was pretty well fascinated by the whole thing. It was interesting, and like nothing he'd ever experienced in his own life, save for the death of his mother at a young age. It didn't hurt that Barry was so incredibly _human_ as he told the story.

It wasn't just that Barry was wide-open compared to how Sebastian Smythe might have been. He was wide-open compared to most everyone Kurt knew. Everything he felt, the pain of his mother's death, the more current pain of visiting his dad in prison once a week for more than a decade, the wonder of what happened to him and what he could do with it, all of it flashed over his face and through his voice with an honesty that any actor would have killed for.

Kurt was used to big emotions, big reactions, big feelings from theatre kids who liked to over dramatize situations that were dramatic enough without the extra fuss. Barry was a guy who had gone through hell and contained it in quiet words and wide, honest eyes.

By the time the train pulled into the station, Kurt was determined to help him with whatever he needed. If it meant convincing Sebastian to take a road trip, fine. If it meant something more, that was fine too. Maybe that was why he had a lab full of smart people fretting about him – Barry Allen was doubtlessly good at inspiring loyalty, even without consciously trying to.

He was a good person. Even in Kurt's non-particle-explosion-filled life, that was rare. Good people who tried to help other people deserved help themselves, he figured.

Kurt had spent the train ride both listening to Barry and texting Dave Karofsky. He didn't want to explain things over the phone, figuring Sebastian would be hard enough to deal with about all this, but he wanted to at least give a heads-up that they were coming. Besides, he didn't know his way around Boston, and he'd never visited Dave's place before.

Dave told him to look for a taxi stand outside the Atlantic Avenue exit to the station, and Kurt wasn't entirely surprised when he and Barry walked out into the dim overcast afternoon to find Dave standing there waiting at the curb, blocking off space that probably belonged to a cab.

“Hey!” Dave was leaning against a car, a nice-looking silver Audi, and he straightened as Kurt approached. “I figured this was easier than...”

Kurt saw Dave's gaze going behind him. He saw the only slight confusion that touched Dave's face when he saw who was following Kurt. The innocent question that appeared behind Dave's eyebrows.

Kurt stalled it for a moment by setting his suitcase – one case, for undetermined days of potential travel, and that was one of the sacrifices he was already making on this trip – on the curb and thrusting out his hand towards Dave. “Hey yourself. You look great.”

Dave blinked, but focused on Kurt again and smiled, wide and crooked. And he did look great – college suited him, or Sebastian, shock of shocks, was actually being a positive influence. Whatever it was, Dave wore clothes that fit and wasn't slouching on himself the way he tended to be in high school. He looked broad and solid in a warm kind of way, entirely non-threatening, which was a nice change of pace.

As much as they talked on Skype this was their first real meeting in quite a while, and Kurt was pleased enough by what he saw that he dropped his arm the moment Dave reached for his hand, and grabbed him in a quick hug instead.

“You too, Kurt.” Dave's answer was warm, his hug firm but distracted. “How the hell did you get Sebastian here when I've got his car?”

Kurt drew back and turned to look back at Barry. “Well. That's kind of a funny story.”

* * *

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

In the second after the front door to the apartment opened, Kurt couldn't decide if it was good or bad timing that Sebastian got home right after Barry stepped out to use the bathroom.

Probably good, he decided the second after that. A word of warning before Sebastian and Barry got a good look at each other would probably be in everyone's best interest. (Even considering Dave and his irritating lack of wonder about the whole situation: he found the entire thing utterly hilarious, judging from the four accidents that almost killed them as he 'just no way, man'd' them to the apartment behind the wheel of Sebastian's admittedly nice Audi, and the high-pitched giggles he had to keep muffling as they sat there waiting.)

“You mind telling me what's so important I had to skip yoga?” a voice drawled out as the front door clicked shut.

Kurt had just enough time to think that Sebastian and Barry really sounded alike before the man himself appeared front the narrow front hallway of the apartment.

Sebastian Smythe. Identifiable from moment one for the languid stride that brought him into the room, and the absolute shit-eating smirk that touched his face when he saw who was sitting there with Dave.

“Well, well. I _thought_ I smelled prude when I walked in. Not content to harass my roommate online anymore, Hummel?”

It was like going back in time three years, and not in any kind of good way. Kurt sat back on the (also really nice) overstuffed sofa and surveyed Sebastian coolly. “Do I want to know what disgusting reason you have for taking yoga classes?”

“I don't take yoga, I grab coffee and a danish and I watch yoga happen. The instructor is a thirty year old Australian who can put both ankles behind his head.” He grinned at Kurt's disapproving snort. “I see the big city hasn't loosened your anus at all. I'm surprised you haven't squeezed that thing so tight it's made you cave in on yourself like some kind of virginal black hole.”

He looked over at Dave without waiting for an answer, shrugging off a leather messenger bag and dropping it on the couch where Barry had been sitting a minute ago. “David. Promise me that my being summoned home early doesn't have anything to do with Ladybird Hummel paying a visit.”

Dave stood up, huge amused grin still on his face. “It's related, yeah. He brought company.”

Sebastian peered at him for a minute, a single artful eyebrow raising at the expression on Dave's face. “If it's not Blaine Anderson then I don't care. And if it is Blaine Anderson I'm only interested if he's learned how to put both ankles behind his head.”

“Trust me, dude, you're gonna care.” Dave beamed.

Kurt wasn't entirely sure how he did that, smiled in the face of Sebastian's arched eyebrows and smirky rat face without wanting to punch him in the eye. He had wondered once or twice since meeting Barry if his memory hadn't been a little too unkind to Sebastian. But no, no, his memory was just fine. It was only seeing that same face with genuine human emotion on it that made him doubt himself.

After he sorted out this whole Barry situation, Operation Rescue Dave was moving to top priority on his to-do list.

“Oh...my god.”

Kurt turned instantly, getting to his feet at the soft words.

Barry stood in the doorway from the bathroom, his eyes huge as he looked at Sebastian. “Wow. I mean, seeing video was one thing, but...”

Kurt looked from him back to Sebastian just as Sebastian looked over at Barry.

Sebastian's eyebrows shot up. He smiled without missing a beat. “Well, either Hummel's taste has improved over the years or he's brought me a treat.”

Kurt gaped at him. Behind him Dave giggled.

“Sebastian Smythe.” Sebastian strode forward, hand outstretched, gaze shooting up and down Barry as if there was absolutely nothing unusual about him. As if he was just some tasty guy passing on the street or something. “Pleasure.”

Barry's awed stare shifted into a smile. A real smile, Kurt couldn't help but note. Sweet. Sweeter than Sebastian deserved. “Barry Allen.”

They shook hands, and from that close it was even more apparent just how eerily similar they were. Same faces, same voices, same height, same slender build. Sebastian's more expensive clothes and utterly silly longer hair were the only real differences.

“Not that I ever second-guess hot guys appearing in my apartment, but what exactly is this all about?” Sebastian scoped him out for another moment, then glanced over at Kurt and Dave.

“You're kidding.” Dave's grin melted. “You're really asking?”

Sebastian shrugged. “I’m asking. And I hate suspense, you know that. It's not too late to catch the end of yoga. Hey, you can come with,” he invited Barry with an openly flirtatious grin. “Leave these two to their no-doubt insipid catching-up.”

“Dude. That's just wrong.” Dave echoed Kurt's thoughts perfectly.

Sebastian peered over at him again. “You brought me a guy and you didn’t expect me to hit on him?”

Kurt studied Sebastian but saw nothing in his expression beyond vague curiosity. “Seriously? I know someone with your massive undeserved ego must spend hours looking into mirrors, surely you recognize your own face.”

Sebastian's head cocked to the side the slightest bit. He looked at Barry, brow furrowing.

Barry stared back at him in open fascination. “Well, strictly speaking it's not like looking into a mirror at all, since mirrors are reverse images and the simple asymmetry of the average face can fool you into thinking you look remarkably different than you do in real life. Even photographs can give a skewed reference point, since the transition from three-dimensional to one can play little tricks on the eyes and the brain. Which is why nobody ever thinks what they see in the mirror matches what they see in pictures. And...of course that has nothing to do with what's happening right now,” he trailed off, turning pink. “But most people would have some difficulty recognizing themselves in person.”

“Wait.” Sebastian shook his head even as Barry talked. He looked over at Dave, mouth quirking up. “You think he looks like me?”

“You don't?” It was Barry who answered, genuine interest in his voice. “Really?”

“No.” Sebastian studied him. “Well. I suppose, in some ways. We could be super sexy brothers or something. Which I'm up for, if you're still in town come Friday night and you want to hit some bars.”

“Are you blind?” Kurt approached the two of them. “If you'd cut your hair – and sweet god but you should cut your hair – I wouldn't be able to tell you two apart.”

Sebastian smirked. “And you're an expert on my appearance?”

“I thought he was you when I first saw him,” Dave said from back behind the couch.

Sebastian's smirk faded at that, and he seemed almost wounded as he looked over at Dave.

Dave shrugged. “He's even got your eyebrows, dude.”

Kurt considered that, looking from Sebastian to Barry in interest. It was true, they both had thick eyebrows with the same exact arches in them. Over the same bright green eyes, the same wide, sculpted noses. The same mouths, same jaws, same cheekbones and long necks and narrow shoulders.

The closer he looked the more eerie it got.

Sebastian frowned as Kurt and Dave studied the two of them. He looked back at Barry, but if anything it was with less interest than he’d had before.

“Well,” he said with a huff of breath, his shoulders squared. “You're an attractive guy, so good job on that. I guess there are worse people I could be mistaken for.” He sent Kurt a withering look. “But I'm sure you didn't come all the way to Boston because you found a guy who reminded you of me, so what are you doing here?”

Kurt hesitated, trading looks with Barry.

Dave's amusement had been bad enough; he wasn't quite sure how to respond to Sebastian's complete absence of interest. Knowing that they were so incredibly similar had felt important as they were coming up on the train, and when they were talking to Barry's friends back in Central City.

The usual stakes, Doctor Wells had warned them. Life or death.

Barry seemed lost for words himself, shrugging at Kurt’s blank look.

Sebastian frowned as moments ticked by with no answer. “You did come to Boston because you found a guy who looked like me.” He laughed, incredulous. “That's fantastic. I’m so pleased to see what a lingering impact I have in your life.”

Kurt bristled at that, at the embarrassment growing on Barry's face as he tried to find words to answer. “Actually, we came because you look like _him_.”

Sebastian scoffed, eyes flickering over Barry and away again.

“Barry is special,” Kurt said firmly. “So special that his having a look-alike is a concern, even if that look-alike is just some vapid egotistical worm who only thinks about getting laid.”

“Kurt.”

“No.” Kurt raised a hand at Barry's mild objection. “I forgot when we were coming up here that we weren't going to be dealing with an actual person, just a cartoon villain from some eighties movie. Honestly, Sebastian, I was actually hopeful you'd grown up a little the last few years.”

Sebastian lifted a hand to his chest, a mock-injured look crossing his face. “Words hurt, Hummel. Though I did have a thing for Andrew McCarthy in those old movies. I always thought the mean rich boy trope was a little underexplored.” He sent Kurt an icy smile. “But if you're done invading my home and insulting me, I've got better places to be. All this self-righteousness is making my skin itch.”

“Wait.” Barry moved in to Sebastian, looking anxious. “I'm sorry, but this might be important.”

“What might be important?” Sebastian stared at him.

Barry flushed. “You know, us. Looking alike.”

“Uh huh. Important to who, exactly?”

Barry opened his mouth, then shut it. Then he blurted, “Can you come to Central City?”

Sebastian blinked at him.

“We just...I need to know why you look so much like me.”

“Some combination of genetics and coincidence. There, I just saved us a trip.” Sebastian scowled at Barry, but a moment later he pulled out his phone. “Here, I'll go one better.” He made a call, looking around at Barry and Kurt and Dave as he listened to the phone ring.

Kurt frowned, but in the awkwardness of the pause he had to admit that he might have been unnecessarily snippy. Something about Sebastian got to him, always had done. It was nice to think that time and maturity might have softened that, but apparently Kurt had some unresolved feelings.

He wasn't going to go so far as to actually apologize, but he supposed he could at least attempt civility.

“Hey, dad.” Sebastian spoke suddenly, his eyes going back to Barry and saying there. “Did you have any other kids I should know about?” There was a pause. “Uh huh. And you didn't throw away a twin when I was born? You didn't have me cloned when I came out so amazing? Right, yeah.” He smirked into the phone, but it seemed hollow. “Nothing, forget it. Tell mom hi.”

He hung up the phone. “I was wrong, it wasn't genetics. Pure coincidence. Is everyone happy now?”

Almost instantly his phone rang, blaring out some shrill EDM beat that was unshockingly reminiscent of some crowded dance floor. Sebastian scowled at the screen but answered, turning away from them.

“I said forget it. No, there's a guy here who thinks he has my face, that's...I don't know, some guy.” Sebastian tensed suddenly, listening. “What?”

Kurt glanced over at Barry, frowning when he saw the tension squaring his shoulders. If they were right that something bigger might have been at play, would Sebastian's parents be aware of it? Wouldn’t they have to be?

Sebastian turned back to Barry suddenly, his frown sudden and sharp. “Don’t be a lunatic, dad. I’m not even home right now.”

Kurt’s focus went back to Sebastian at that, feeling as tense as Barry looked.

“No, I’m still on campus. Just stop being weird, I’ll call you when I get home. I’m not about to tell some crazy stranger where I live, don’t worry.” Sebastian stared at Barry. “Yeah, relax. I’ll call. Dad. Knock it off.”

He growled after a moment and lowered his phone, swiping at the screen. He tossed it on the couch and stared at Barry as if in accusation. “And now Thanksgiving is going to be awkward, because my dad thinks I’m a lunatic.”

“Why did you lie to him?” Barry asked, voice soft after Sebastian’s irritation. “You sensed something wrong, didn’t you?”

“Of course I sensed something wrong. There’s a crazy person in my home trying to drag me to Missouri of all places because we’re both attractive young men. Also Kurt Hummel knows where I live now, which will never not be disturbing.” He turned to Dave suddenly, stalking to the couch and grabbing the messenger bag he’d dumped when he first walked in. “Get them out of here. You’re as much Lima nostalgia as I ever want to be exposed to. I’m going to get some dinner.”

“Come on, Sebastian.” Dave shot Kurt and Barry a look, but when Sebastian stormed out the door Dave followed him, leaving the two of them alone.

In the quiet that followed Kurt looked around the place absently, the overstuffed furniture and the actually-interesting art prints on the walls, the high ceilings and the huge bright windows against the back wall. It was a nice place. He could forgive Dave living with Sebastian if he was scoring so nice an apartment, he decided. Having rich friends, Kurt already knew, was sometimes worth putting up with extra aggravation.

“So.” He sighed after a minute, tearing his eyes from admiring the chrome appliances he could see gleaming from the kitchen. “That’s Sebastian.”

“You guys really don’t like each other,” Barry answered with an awkward laugh.

“No.” Kurt hesitated, looking down the short hall to the door Sebastian had stormed out of. “I suppose back in high school it appealed to my sense of drama to have an actual nemesis. He plays the role well.”

Barry shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans, looking uncomfortable in the silence of the strange apartment. “I don’t think Dr. Wells is going to just accept a refusal. I might have to stick around a few days, try to convince Sebastian to come with me.”

“I don’t know if I’m helping or hurting being here, but I’ll stay if you want.” Kurt turned to him suddenly, curious. “Is it strange, do you think, that he didn’t seem to recognize how alike you two are? I mean all that stuff you were saying about facial symmetry...I just really think he should have…” He shrugged.

Barry considered that. “I don’t know. I mean when I looked at him I sure saw something incredibly familiar, but then I had warning. I get the feeling…” He frowned, seeming to flip words around in his head. “Maybe he just knows himself so well that the differences between him and me were more obvious to him than the similarities.” He smiled weakly. “He definitely has more confidence than I can manage.”

“He has more confidence than anyone should manage.” Kurt resisted the urge to make a face. “So what do we do now?”

Barry frowned.

 

* * *

 

  
“So here's the thing.”

Kurt hovered back over Barry's shoulder, peering at the laptop screen, wanting to know the thing but pretty sure at this point that he wouldn't understand as much as Barry would.

Caitlin was looking between the webcam and another monitor in his lab. “Judging by what we have so far...it's uncanny, Barry. There are variations in even the most similar faces. Even monozygotic twins have measurable facial differences, idiosyncratic traits like...scars, or moles, something. Sometimes it can take some time to spot the differences, but the differences are always there.”

She hesitated.

Kurt understood that pause. “But?”

“I mean, there's a chance my calculations are wrong. I'm pulling this guy's facial reference points from some pretty low-quality video stills. But. I'd still normally expect to see some obvious variations, because from everything we know you two aren't monozygotic twins. As far as we know you're not even related.”

Barry sighed. “Trust me, as closely as my family history was torn about by the press and the police after my mom died, I'd know if there was some missing twin.”

“Well, plus you're not even the same age.”

Caitlin squinted through the Skype box even as Barry turned in his chair. “What?”

Kurt hesitated. “Sebastian was a grade under me in school. And Barry, you've got a degree and a career, you've got to be...”

“Twenty-five,” Barry confirmed.

“Sebastian's maybe...twenty-one?”

Barry turned back to the computer slowly.

“Well.” Caitlin seemed nonplussed. “That puts another wrinkle in things, doesn't it? It also means that the very, very few differences I could find, and we're talking millimeters of uncertain measurements, could be due to the difference in age. I'd expect to see the same differences if I compared you now to you a few years younger.” She frowned at them solemnly. “Judging strictly by facial calculations...he's you.”

Barry tapped his fingers absently on the edge of the hotel desk. Larger, nicer hotel desk than the one in New York, luckily, but Kurt had made that a condition on staying the night in Boston. He didn't need five stars, but he needed at least two.

“We've got to get him into the lab,” Barry said with a sigh. “Kurt, you know him. How do we get him to come with us?”

Kurt moved away from the laptop, dropping on the nearest of the twin beds and sitting heavily. “Dave,” he said after a minute. “The only chance we have, probably, is to get him to talk Sebastian into it. For some reason Dave seems to actually like him, and Sebastian isn't openly contemptuous of Dave. If I can give him some explanation, he'll help."

Barry frowned. “I suppose the truth might work.”

“Barry.”

He looked at the laptop screen, distracted. “We already tried being vague, and neither of them took it seriously. Sebastian doesn't care how alike we look. I can't convince him there might be danger unless I tell them why my life is dangerous.”

Caitlin sounded irritated. “Can't you just tell him you're dying or something, and you need his liver?”

“Sebastian isn't the selfless type,” Kurt answered from out of her sight on the bed. “I'm not sure he'd care.”

“Well. Whatever you do, do it fast.” Caitlin sounded closer suddenly, though her voice was pitched quiet. “Doctor Wells is getting seriously uptight about this. He's been tracking this Sebastian guy's history down using that YouTube video and school yearbooks and things. You know how...overprotective...he can get.”

Barry grimaced. “Yeah. Give me until tomorrow to think of something.”

“Fine. But telling him the truth is the last resort, Barry. This guy doesn't sound particularly trustworthy, no matter how good-looking as he might be.”

Barry smiled at that. “Flattery. That might get me on your side.”

She laughed quietly. “I thought as much.”

There was a click, the tired sound of Skype shutting down, and Barry shut the lid on his laptop. “Okay. Your friend, how much would we need to tell him to get him to help?”

Kurt considered that, and his answer was almost guilty. “Not much. He'll probably do anything I ask him. He sort of adores me.”

“Yeah? You're lucky, he looks like the kind of guy who used to beat me up in high school.”

Kurt diplomatically didn't answer that. His relationship with Dave Karofsky, in all its various phases, was a little complicated to be diving into with so much else going on.

His phone started bleating in his pocket – Thelma Houston, Dave's ringtone.

“Speak of the devil.” Kurt fished his phone out and dropped back to lay on the bed with a quiet wish that whatever Dave was calling about was going to make his life less difficult. “David?”

But it wasn't Dave's voice, and it wasn't less difficult at all. “What the hell did you do, Hummel?”

“Sebastian?” Kurt sat up again instantly. He had to almost shout over all the background noise blaring through the phone. “Why do you have Dave's--”

“Because he's gone! Everything's gone!”

“What? What do you mean, gone?”

Barry was on his feet by then, and there was suddenly nothing shy or hesitant about him. He looked like he was a second away from grabbing the phone, thrumming on his toes at the merest suggestion that something was wrong.

“You did this. You brought that guy into my life, and this is his fault. I know it is. We barely got out, do you get that?”

Kurt could hear shouts in the background, hectic growling sounds. He took a guess in the dark. “Is that a fire?”

Barry didn't have to hear anymore. If Kurt had blinked at that moment he would have missed the blur that shot to the door and then out so fast he might as well have passed right through it.

Jolted by Barry's sudden disappearance, Kurt gripped his phone tight in his hand. “Sebastian, where's Dave? What's going on?”

Sebastian laughed, and something in that tight, thready sound seemed to completely cut through Kurt. “It was my dad. My dad just burned...tried to _kill_ me. Jesus, what...Dave might be dead, he got us out, he's the one...”

Kurt opened his mouth, but it hung open silently.

“Jesus, Hummel. What did you do? What the fuck did you bring into my life?”

The worst thing was, Kurt couldn't answer that. Danger had been a word Barry spoke and a concept Kurt batted around, but this, a fire and a panicked call and whatever had happened to Dave...this was absolutely nothing he'd even contemplated.

Whatever was going on, he really had brought it into Sebastian's life, and aside from one cute guy with a sweet smile he had no idea what _it_ really was.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Kurt was the last to arrive at the hospital.

By the time he made it to the emergency room entrance Barry had already joined Sebastian. They were sitting in tense, uncomfortable silence in the middle of the crowded waiting room. The smell of smoke was thick in the air, and some of the people around them were visibly singed, so Kurt figured a lot of them came from the fire at Sebastian's building.

Barry stood up to meet him when he saw Kurt coming. Sebastian sat stiffly against the wall and ignored them both.

“The whole building is burning. Seven people are missing so far,” Barry said quietly when he reached Kurt. “Seven. I went in to look for whoever I could, but there was no one alive to save.”

“What happened?”

“I'm not sure. Whatever he knows, he's not saying.” He nodded back at Sebastian, and when he looked back at Kurt guilt was a visible furrow in his brow, a dullness in his eyes. “I don't know what exactly made him think this has something to do with me, but he might very well be right. And if that's the case I have to get him somewhere safe. And you need to go home.”

Kurt swallowed, unable to brush that off as easily as he might have done before Sebastian's frantic phone call earlier. Danger actually meant _danger_ , he suddenly recognized, and Kurt knew he wasn't equipped to handle fires and death and whatever else might come.

But he didn't agree, either. His gaze went to Sebastian.

He was wearing the same clothes he'd been in earlier, jeans and a polo shirt. His jacket was gone. He sat ramrod straight in the plastic waiting room chair, eyes staring out at nothing. His jaw was set, his mouth pressed tightly closed.

Kurt braced himself and went over. Barry's quiet footsteps followed.

“How's Dave?”

Sebastian's throat worked. He didn't look at Kurt. “They haven't told me anything yet.”

“What happened?” Kurt sat down in Barry's chair, facing Sebastian.

There was a pause. Sebastian looked up suddenly. “Who are you?”

Barry stood over them, fidgeting uncomfortably. “I told you. Barry Allen. I live in Central City, I'm a forensic tech with the CCPD.”

“Kurt said earlier that you were special. I assumed that was flowery queer talk because he so obviously wants to get in your pants. But what does it really mean?”

Kurt sent a half-hearted glare Sebastian's way, which meant he didn't have to see whatever was on Barry's face when he looked over at Kurt in response. Sebastian was an ass at the best of times, and he wasn't even right in this case, at all, but it wasn't exactly a good time to jump all over him.

He felt it like a tangible thing when Barry's intent green eyes left him, and only then did Kurt look back up.

“I'll show you. Come outside.”

Kurt stood even as Sebastian did, and they trekked out the door and away from the groaning, shock-hushed crowd.

Barry looked around the busy emergency room entrance then loped away from the front road, towards the parking garage. He came to a stop still in view of the front of the hospital but out of the way of the activity he must have been trying to avoid. He turned and locked eyes with Kurt for just a moment before looking at Sebastian.

Sebastian stood stiffly, his expression harder than anything Kurt had seen on Barry's face.

Barry opened his mouth, then closed it. He frowned, then...

Then he was gone.

There was that instant of blurring as Kurt looked at him, and then it was like he simply vanished.

That startled Sebastian out of his hard fugue. He took a step backwards, looking around with eyes narrowed, though they widened after a few seconds when Barry stayed gone.

He looked over at Kurt. “What--”

Barry appeared again almost in the same spot he'd been standing. He held something in his hand, black fabric that smelled so heavily of smoke that Kurt could smell it almost the same moment he became aware that Barry was back. He stretched it out to Sebastian, looking nervous.

Sebastian stared hard at him, but took what he was offered. He held it up – his jacket, the one he wore when he got to the apartment earlier that day. He looked at it silently, then back at Barry. 

Barry met his eyes, and forgotten about at their side Kurt looked back and forth between them, thinking how utterly bizarre it was, watching this guy staring so hard at a mirror image.

“It's a long story,” Barry said after a long moment. “I'll answer any questions or whatever, but first can you tell us what happened?”

Sebastian swallowed. He glanced at Kurt and then back towards the hospital entrance. “My dad called again, a couple hours after you left. Wanted to make sure I was home.” He flashed something like a smile, an upward tilt of his mouth that didn't seem happy in the slightest. “He told me he loved me, and he was sorry, and then he hung up. And about five seconds later Dave called out from the living room, asked if I smelled gas.”

Kurt frowned. “That's it?”

Sebastian sent him a cool stare. “My dad doesn't say 'I love you'. He sure as hell doesn't say he's sorry, not about anything.”

“There was gas outside your door,” Barry said before Kurt could respond. “They're still putting the fire out, but you can tell from the burn patterns. Someone tracked gasoline or some other combustible right to the front of your door. They lit up the front lobby too, but whoever it wasn't didn't want anyone coming out of that one apartment in particular.”

Sebastian nodded. His face was a mask, like he was trying to look utterly unsurprised, but there was a glint in his eyes, a set to his mouth. He hadn't wanted it to be true.

Well. Of course he hadn't. It wasn't going to do Kurt any good to keep treating him like a cartoon when he'd apparently had this massive dose of reality thrown at him.

“How did you get out?” he asked a moment later, his voice soft.

“Dave...” Sebastian's mouth thinned. His eyes went back to the hospital entrance, and his grip tightened around his smoky jacket. “We could see flames coming in under the door. He was...quick. There's a terrace outside the living room, he practically dangled me over until I could get to the terrace on the floor below us. But when he tried to drop down after me he...he landed on the edge of the...but then he slipped. He fell.”

Kurt sucked in a breath, his mind working instantly. Sebastian's apartment was on the third floor, the terrace below would be the second floor, so... “...maybe twenty feet up? That sounds bad. Is that bad?” He looked to Barry when he realized he was asking out loud.

Barry's grim expression was answer enough. “Falls are really subjective, though. People can die falling six feet, or they can live after falling from ten flights up. It's all in how they land. How did he land?”

“There are bushes down there, I think they broke his fall. But I don't know. By the time I got out and found a way behind the building to where he was the cops were there, they kept me back. I saw them take him in the ambulance. He'd tossed me his phone before he tried to follow me down. I called you. I came here.” Sebastian's words were starting to come out on the staccato side, short and sharp. He held the jacket to his chest convulsively, shivering a little in the night air.

“Come on,” Barry said suddenly. “Let's get back inside. I can call a friend of mine to hack into the hospital computers, but I think they'll come talk to you before they'd put anything into the database about his condition.”

Barry approached Sebastian and actually gripped his arm, leading him back towards the hospital. It was brave of him, given Sebastian's mood, but Kurt noticed that Sebastian went where he was led without reaction, feet dragging uncharacteristically as they walked.

Inside the waiting room was as crowded as they'd left it, maybe a little noisier as people were starting to wake up after the jarring ordeal.

Their seats had been taken, but Barry led Sebastian over to the nurse's station without a word. Kurt hung back, uncertain. After a minute talking to the nurse in the front Barry left Sebastian there and came back to Kurt.

“Shock,” he said with a frown, looking around at the people around them. “He probably won't have to be admitted but I'll feel better if the nurse agrees.”

Kurt looked at Sebastian's visibly-shuddering profile, feeling bleak. He didn't want to see Sebastian Smythe in shock. He didn't want to be at a hospital waiting to hear if Dave was okay or not. But there he was. And it was all his own fault. All of this, all these people. Seven missing, Barry had said. Gasoline in a hallway and Dave slipping off the edge of a terrace and falling to the ground.

“I don't get it,” he said after a minute. He was looking at Barry but his focus was on everything all at once. “I don't understand what's happening here.”

He expected Barry to agree that it was a mystery. Barry didn't. He frowned hard, like for all their confusion about Sebastian and why they were so alike he still knew exactly what was happening, or suspected.

But if he did, he didn't say. He looked away from Kurt back to where Sebastian stood talking to the nurse, and he didn't say anything at all. 

 

* * *

 

He called Blaine mostly just to have something to do while Barry was checking in at his lab.

“Hey! I'm on my way home now, what's up? Want me to bring dinner?”

Kurt blinked. “I'm still in Boston.”

“Boston?” Blaine sounded sincerely surprised. “What are you doing in Boston?”

“I left you a voicemail. I messaged you on Facebook. I've been gone for two days, are you telling me you didn't know?”

“Really? Oh, man, I'm so sorry, I've been moving nonstop. You know how my schedule is. Is everything okay?”

Kurt made a fist and released it. “No. I'm not sure when I'll be back, actually, it might be a few more days.” He drew in a calming breath and it did absolutely nothing, so he glared at the wall, suddenly on the verge of being furious. “I wanted to make sure you were okay without me. You didn't even notice I was gone.” 

“It's not like that, I just haven't been home longer than I needed to sleep. I'm really sorry, Kurt, I've just...”

“Been busy. Right.”

There was a pause. “You're mad.”

“No.” Fist, release. Fist, release. “I just have to go. I'll call you when I know when I'll be back. Or maybe I'll just show up. Or maybe I won't. We'll make it a game – see what Blaine notices.”

“Kurt.”

He lowered his phone and jabbed at the screen to end the call.

Honestly, it wasn't a huge surprise. Their paths barely crossed anymore. Kurt had taken it as a good sign when they started being so busy separately. A part of him had worried that when Blaine got to New York Kurt's life would go back to revolving around him, the way it always seemed to in Lima. Their separate hours was proof that it wouldn't, that Kurt had grown up enough to do his own thing.

But this was the other extreme, and it might have been worse.

Or maybe it was a sign of something.

Who knew? Kurt wasn't in the best mindset to be thinking about it. He was standing in the middle of chaos, which despite Hollywood's lies was the worst time to make any kind of relationship decisions.

Still. It had an impact. Later when things were calmer he would have to take a look and work out just what that impact was.

For the moment, though, there were bigger things to worry about. 

 

* * *

 

“Hey!”

Kurt stopped dead in the doorway, surprise giving way to relief before he could so much as blink.

Dave's grin was a little bleary, his wave a little too enthusiastic. Maybe to make up for the other arm, which was resting inside a sling. “Hey!” he said again. “It's Kurt! Kurt's here!”

Sitting beside his bed, Sebastian didn't look relieved. He looked utterly bored. “And my day brightens that much more.”

Kurt frowned at him, but his focus went back to Dave fast. “So I hear you're going to live after all.”

“Yep. Didn't even break anything, just bruised like _all over,_ got the wind knocked outta me.”

“And dislocated your shoulder, you drugged up idiot.”

“That too.” Dave beamed at Sebastian. “Done worse playing football.”

Kurt moved to the bed and perched on the edge, surveying him critically. “Well. You don't look all that good.”

“Compared to what?”

He glared over at Sebastian. “What's your problem all the sudden? You should be relieved.”

“When I need behavioral tips from a stuck-up, tight-assed prudish little queen, you're the first one I'll call.” Sebastian's eyes flitted away from him and back to Dave.

Kurt's mouth snapped open to retort, but he stopped himself.

Too easy to look at Sebastian now and picture him two hours ago, in shock and shivering and lost. Whatever act he was putting on, obnoxious though it was, maybe Kurt would let him keep it. For a while, anyway.

When he forced himself to relax and turned back to Dave, Dave's eyes were on him. “He's being a prick,” he said in a whisper only a little less loud than his greeting shout had been. “He does that.”

“Forget him. I'm glad you're okay.”

“Me too.” Dave blinked behind Kurt. “Whoa.”

“Sorry to interrupt.” Barry spoke right behind him, making Kurt jump and wheel around. “But I need to talk to you.”

Sebastian glanced over long enough to see that he was the one Barry was talking to. His face hardened. “So talk.”

Barry hesitated, looking over at Dave. “I'm glad you're alright,” he said.

Dave looked between them and giggled.

Sebastian rolled his eyes. “Talk, I said. Dave isn't going to give out your little secret, if he even remembers this when he sobers up.”

Barry considered Dave, but nodded. “Fine. Look, obviously you're in some kind of danger now.”

“Thanks to you.”

“Exactly. Which means it's my responsibility to get you somewhere safe.”

Sebastian snorted, but didn't answer right away. “Let me guess. Safety is in Missouri.”

“My friends and I can protect you, yeah.”

“Forget it.” His eyes slid back to Dave instantly.

Barry studied him, then shrugged. “He can come too.”

Sebastian looked back.

“Caitlin, one of my friends, she's got a medical background. She patches me up all the time. Dave will basically have a private physician right there with him while he gets better.”

Dave blinked at him, then at Sebastian. “Something's going on here.”

“Let the adults talk.” Sebastian stood up, but he only moved closer to the bed, still regarding Barry. “We've got finals coming up.”

“We'll help you study. We're all complete nerds, mad smart.”

Sebastian smirked at that. “You're serious about this.”

Barry nodded. The earnestness that Kurt first admired about him was shining through his worry. “This shouldn't have happened. I'm not going to leave you here and just hope it doesn't happen again. If they want you dead then they'll be back when they realize you survived.”

The smirk vanished. Sebastian looked down at Dave, and in that moment Kurt saw how thin his blase-asshole mask really was.

There was something in that that tugged at Kurt. Something about the moments of silence, when Sebastian's eyes drifted over Dave and his sling and the sheets covering his narrow hospital bed, while Dave sat patiently, humoring his look with just a glassy smile. He couldn't narrow in on it – maybe it was only the bizarreness of the fact that Kurt could actually tell right then that Sebastian was genuinely worried about another human being.

Whatever. It had the strange dual reaction of making Kurt want to both slap the guy and be patient and wait for his response.

“Wait.” Dave's fuzzy smile vanished suddenly. He looked over at Barry and Kurt. “Someone set the place on fire on purpose?”

“Definitely.” Barry's answer was instant.

“To kill Sebastian?”

“Less definite, but bordering on fact.”

Dave sat up, an unsteady haul that made Sebastian twitch and start to reach for him before stiffening and standing back. “Somebody just tried to kill Sebastian.  _Kill_ him. With  _death_ .”

Barry nodded.

Dave's eyes went to Kurt, still glassy but incredulous under the drugs. “Seriously?”

“Looks like it. Here you are, right?”

“Yeah, but.” Dave looked down at himself, then over at Sebastian. “And your spooky twin wants to...what? Take you somewhere safe?”

Sebastian scowled, as if sensing the argument being lost.

Dave turned to Barry. “He'll do it.”

“Dave. If I want your drugged-up meat-head opinion--”

“Shut up. You're going.”

“We have finals.”

“Dead guys don't need degrees. Besides, our fucking textbooks are all gone, aren't they? The fire... everything's gone.”

Sebastian glared at him. “I can buy us replacements. My dad is...” He shut his mouth suddenly, his face losing color.

Kurt winced reflexively, and was glad Sebastian wasn't looking at him to notice it.

Sebastian's face took on a little of that distant shock he'd had earlier. His hands, hanging at his sides, formed fists and relaxed them. Kurt noticed, and was reminded of his phone call with Blaine earlier. He'd dealt with his own stifled rage by doing that. Which was strange, wasn't it? Kurt wasn't exactly known to throw punches. He had never responded to anger with physical violence. It wasn't how he was wired. Sebastian seemed the same way – he had a cruel tongue and sharp wit, and that was how he fought his battles.

But maybe there was something in the gesture that brought relief all the same. Maybe just the unconscious reminder that if a punch had to be thrown he possessed the right appendages and the muscle control to use them.

Or maybe it was was as harmless as squeezing one of those stress balls people kept on their desks.

“My dad,” Sebastian repeated finally, the words falling hard and thumping into the silence, a complete thought on their own. He drew in a breath and nodded at Dave. “Everything's gone.”

Then he turned and stalked to the door, passing Kurt without a glance.

Barry started after him, but Kurt held up a hand. “Just. It's got to be a lot. Maybe give him a minute?”

“No.” Dave's eyes were on Kurt. “Go get him. Talk him into it. Don't give him time to think. He does dumb shit when he thinks too much.”

Kurt sighed, but waved Barry to back where he'd been standing. He left the room and looked up and down the hall, spotting Sebastian's lanky, angry form turning a corner to the right.

When he turned that corner himself, he stopped dead. Sebastian hadn't kept going. He was standing maybe two feet from the corner, leaning back against the wall, his head tilted back and his eyes looking blankly upward.

“This is insane,” he said before Kurt could figure out what to say. He didn't look over.

Kurt let out a breath. “I know.”

Sebastian was quiet for another few moments. In the distance Kurt could hear the footsteps and voices of a hospital going about its routine, but things were quiet where they were, at least for the moment.

“So is it as good as you hoped?”

Kurt's focus went back to Sebastian. “What?”

“The show.” Sebastian smiled a thin and entirely unhappy smile. “Whatever you were anticipating when you brought this guy to my place. I bet you couldn't wait to watch my life fall apart.”

“Sebastian...”

“Don't prevaricate, Kurt. Your open contempt of me was one of the only things I liked about you. If our places were reversed I probably would have been looking forward to it, too.”

“I didn't think all this was going to happen. I thought, you know...you'd see Barry and realize you weren't the unique snowflake you think you are. Hell, you're not even the most interesting guy I know with your exact face. So maybe I figured that ego of yours would get a little bruised, and I wouldn't mind seeing it.”

Sebastian snorted, a soft puff of air. His eyes finally moved to Kurt. “You really think my ego has anything to do with my face?”

Kurt shrugged. If they were being honest... “I never understood your ego, frankly.”

“I'm practically fainting from shock. There's a lot of things you don't understand, Hummel.”

Kurt drew in a breath, let it out. “But I didn't expect any of this.” He gestured at the hospital corridor around them. “You've got to know that.”

“Mm.” Sebastian relaxed a little, arms coming up and folding across his chest. “No, I suppose you wouldn't put Dave into the middle of something like this, at least.”

“No.” That was an easier answer. “Or anyone else. This is insane, just like you said. And Barry's right, you need to get somewhere safe. I think his friends...they're like doctors and scientists and things, maybe they can figure out why things are happening this way.”

Sebastian met his gaze. “This way. You mean why my own dad would try to have me killed because I said I met a guy who looks like me.”

“Barry's special.” Kurt realized he'd said that earlier – and Jesus, had that really only been earlier today? He flushed, remembering Sebastian's snide little comment about Kurt wanting to get into Barry's pants. But some things did not merit responses, and that was one. “I only mean, it's a dangerous kind of special. Where he's from, I guess there's other people like him. Or not like him, really, but with...powers, like he's got.”

“This is the safe place he wants me to run off to with him?”

Kurt shrugged. “Point is, this is obviously and very literally a matter of life and death. And if you die then Dave will sulk, and our Skype talks will become depressing, and I don't need that in my life. Just go with him, okay?”

“Do you want to hear something really pathetic? Don't answer that: it's me talking, so I know you do.”

Kurt rolled his eyes, but his mouth twitched upward. “What?”

Sebastian looked over, and the expression on his face was enough to stop Kurt's smile in his tracks. "It doesn't really matter what I want. I don't have anywhere else to go.”

 


End file.
